Coming up for air...

... when it comes to my quilting life. Been drowning a bit in all life stuff and my creative/fabric life was on hold... but hey, we all have that and c'est la vie, as French say.
Also, Spring is really late here in western NY - my garden is finally started to smile back at me!

And then you get a frosty morning (seriously! just few days ago!) and all tulips flop... But there is beauty in that too - my camera caught this one:

slowly but surely, some fruit trees are blooming too - one plum tree and pears are first this year - I just love the simplicity of their little blooms!!

When your heart is full of worry and your mind is restless, there is nothing better to bring calm than walking through the garden... It least for me.
Well, or looking at beautiful fabric and dreaming up a project, too! :)
I have a few piles that patiently waited for me...

This is a mix of two vibrant and beautiful collections, Pat Bravo's Dare and Essentials 2. You just have to smile looking at these!
They are going into a mini quilt since I am one of the lucky ones invited to participate in fun and oh so inspiring Minis Blog Tour, hosted by Pat Bravo. It already already started and I am a bit late talking about it (yeah, coming up for air...remember? ) but if you haven't seen it yet, hop quickly to Pat's blog to follow it all! My turn is coming next week...

Making a mini quilt is just so much fun! It's small, it kinda invites you to play, to dare trying something new... And it is so good to play, to dare, to step out of your usual, right? In fact, it is ESSENTIAL. It is

ESSENTIAL2DARE

Yup, that is it! That will be the name of my mini quilt - Essential2Dare!!
Oh I just love it!!

Also have another beautiful pile that was waiting for me...

It's colorful, flower-y and scrappy, with a side of that beautiful, new AGF denim! Another new adventure for me and I really can't wait to show you what it inspired.
Oh and I even have a finished one to show you, despite my sewing hiatus - a quick, REALLY quick baby quilt had to be made. I literally made this during one and a half evenings (one of them was a late night of course) and was given away - yesterday! My coworker is going to be a dad for a second time and we decided to throw a little
celebration for him, therefore a quilt had to me made, pronto! It was a surprise for him but we managed to ins out that nursery theme is "Under the sea", so a dig through my stash produced this perfect border print

Few quick pinwheel blocks later, here it is:

I figured that under the sea calls for lots of bubbles, some fish and similar things, so with beautiful teal color 50wt Aurifil, a very late night quilting produced this:

Found this really cute flannel in my stash too, for the back. See, it is really, really good to have a big stash when you are in a time crunch! Am I right? ;)

And I apologize for not so good photos - it was 3 am when I finished and it was gone next day...

And the fact that I just wrote this whole blog post while hubby was driving us back from work, tells you about my crazy life and my craving for some more creative time...

Oh well, no whining, just press on!

Have a lovely weekend ahead and happy, happy Mother's Day to you all!
Love,
Marija

PS - speaking of garden making me smile, here is what greeted me just now, as we arrived home... Lucky me. :)